scientology & celebrities

i guess i should be more freaked out by these guys than i am? discrete cabal of christian theocrats (i.e. C-Street creeps) wielding undemocratic influence over foreign and domestic policy is way scarier tbh

If you have only watched the nine-minute edit of the video where Tom Cruise accepts the award for the Freedom Medal of Valor, you should really watch the full 40 minutes, because it is exceptional. Part 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMvAXpq7Xj4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9onb8RcVnmE

lol

its just KSW *swoosh* - and the suppression is shattered!

My favorite part is when he talks about that and the fact that his mere existence as OT9000 keeps sociopaths (suppressive persons) away from him.

I assume he means that when he encounters a SP he just does the manual of bullying tactics that is used to shout them down?

no, SPs can't get close to him. they are like physically repulsed by his massive amounts of theta.

he doesn't need to do "suppression shatter" but he's still a big fan of it.

I tht people were just physically repulsed cz he is Tom Cruise.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_wright

Brolin says that he once witnessed John Travolta practicing Scientology. Brolin was at a dinner party in Los Angeles with Travolta and Marlon Brando. Brando arrived with a cut on his leg, and explained that he had injured himself while helping a stranded motorist on the Pacific Coast Highway. He was in pain. Travolta offered to help, saying that he had just reached a new level in Scientology. Travolta touched Brando’s leg and Brando closed his eyes. “I watched this process going on—it was very physical,” Brolin recalls. “I was thinking, This is really fucking bizarre! Then, after ten minutes, Brando opens his eyes and says, ‘That really helped. I actually feel different!’ ” (Travolta, through a lawyer, called this account “pure fabrication.”)

this whole thing is O_O as hell and you all need to read it. i knew some of the lingo and understood it to be a big scam but this is nuttier and more horrible than i expected.

Waiting for my hard copy to show up, I'm still not keen on reading articles that long on screen.

that shit about the kids' education is pretty horrible

In late September, Davis and Feshbach, along with four attorneys representing the church, travelled to Manhattan to meet with me and six staff members of The New Yorker. In response to nearly a thousand queries, the Scientology delegation handed over forty-eight binders of supporting material, stretching nearly seven linear feet...

great article

First Scientology piece I've read that addresses its latent/blatant homophobia, not to mention explicitly alludes to certain high-profile closeted gay Scientologists, which would be merely salacious were it mentioned in a publication other than the New Yorker.

Waiting for my hard copy to show up, I'm still not keen on reading articles that long on screen.

I'm not either, but I just couldn't stop...

this has article has occupied my evening.

Woah 26 page article. Have to wait til I get home to read this one.

holy shit this article!!!!

Miscavige’s official title is chairman of the board of the Religious Technology Center, but he dominates the entire organization. His word is absolute, and he imposes his will even on some of the people closest to him. According to Rinder and Brousseau, in June, 2006, while Miscavige was away from the Gold Base, his wife, Shelly, filled several job vacancies without her husband’s permission. Soon afterward, she disappeared. Her current status is unknown. Tommy Davis told me, “I definitely know where she is,” but he won’t disclose where that is.

labor camp

i will admit to looking at gmaps around hemet CA to see if anything stuck out...

i got bored after 7 pages

I read the whole thing. Nothing new (if you've been following this stuff) but it's great to see New Yorker publish an expose like this. Most journalists (see Matt Taibbi's mailbag recently) won't touch Scientology. I've got some crazy personal stories about ppl my family knows who got involved in Scientology and they did evil shit to them. The more exposure, imo, the better.

Wright's on Fresh Air today.

Cool, that's on in 25 minutes on WHYY.

They have labor camps with kids in them! These camps may produce gifts for Tom Cruise occasionally!

These facts seem like parodic worst-case scenarios but it's apparently true. Wtf.

when the planet Earth, then called Teegeeack

weird that such an exhaustive article skips over Operation Snow White

I don't think I've ever mentioned this on ILX but a very good friend of mine was a product of a Scientology family. She worked at the Sea Org in Clearwater, FL as a child/young teen. Very little schooling, mostly working long days and being bunked with 6 other people in a tiny room. She eventually ran away and was threatened by the Church and her parents to come back which she never did. Her parents were ordered to disconnect from her and they are straight wacked. Her and her parents have an obvious very strained relationship as her parents are lifers and that's probably never gonna change at this point.

She has many nightmarish stories about the psychological warfare and crazy crazy creepy cult bureaucratic shit that goes on, and my friend is obviously a bit scarred by all of it but she ended up going to college and now owns a pretty successful business. I don't think many of her friends know the whole horrible backstory.

Anyways, nothing to do with celebrity, just bored on my lunch break and taking a break from reading bike repair manuals.

I gotta say, as someone who doesn't know much about Scientology, the Sea Org stuff kinda freaks me out.

It all freaks me out. People are crazy.

i was once acquainted with a girl who had a similar story, but was kind of cagey about it; grew up in a church dorm somewhere in missouri, mom was still there. it came up once and she got a little tense, and gave an answer like you'd hear if someone was a muslim convert at a baptist convention: faith is a personal choice, values are universal, everyone has their own experiences, you shouldn't judge anyone, etc. i couldn't tell if that meant she was a believer or a runaway or what.

Values like: don't make people stay somewhere and live in virtual slavery

maybe she had a lot of people getting up in her face about how shitty scientology is! i really don't know

skydad

A survey of American religious affiliations, compiled in the Statistical Abstract of the United States, estimates that only twenty-five thousand Americans actually call themselves Scientologists. That’s less than half the number who identify themselves as Rastafarians

lol

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GlQaJjCs7Aw/Rz4azJChbUI/AAAAAAAABlg/9XImhL_iZ-0/s400/rasta.JPG

Thought the parts about the Beverly Hills acting coach gave made it much clearer why it's a celeb org.

someone i live with gets CELEBRITY, the scientologist newsletter. ananda lewis WHY?

the NPR interview is up and is pretty interesting

man sea org

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/7600/seaorgey5.jpg

(Be sure to right-click on that one.)

you poor, deluded fools

most culty shit gets down to sex & sexual powergame garbage at some level. i was a little surprised the NYer story didn't have more about that. or maybe these dudes don't roll that way for some reason.

disappearing your own wife might qualify tho...

http://www.entertainmentgeekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/bohemianrhapsody.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3563/3489072713_4992e24847.jpg

most culty shit gets down to sex & sexual powergame garbage at some level. i was a little surprised the NYer story didn't have more about that. or maybe these dudes don't roll that way for some reason.

tiny man prefers beatings to sex